“Pack yourself a toothbrush dear
Pack yourself a favourite blouse
Take a withdrawal slip
Take all of your savings out
‘Cause if we don’t leave this town
We might never make it out
I was not born to drown
Baby come on”
Ahh, The Lumineers – you speak our language! Those are the lyrics to our favourite song and words we will be living by in the (very) near future – eeek! Time for us to pack our bags and get on out of this town. Time for a break from the mundane lifestyle we live. Time to leave our family and friends behind for a while. Time to withdraw those savings and make travel our life.
Emotions are erratic and there is doubt that we, two designers from Johannesburg, South Africa, can make this work. But the passion for travel is strong, just as strong as we like our coffee, and that is the driving force for us to make a life on the road. All we want in life is to experience the world, taste the coffee and to never let go of our creativity. Hence, the birth of Grindstone Runaways.
So, how exactly did we get to this point?
About a year ago, the idea to travel the world as much as we can was born. We were in Tokyo, Japan, sitting in the tiniest of Ramen shops (soon you will learn of our Ramen obsession too), eating the most amazing tonkotsu ramen where our discussion about taking traveling more seriously got started. We have both traveled before and constantly talk about how awesome the world seems and how insignificant we as humans are on this massive planet we call home. The chit-chat between us grew fast and quickly evolved into a “Let’s do this!” kinda’ discussion. Whoa!, that escalated fast! And now, in a week we will be on our way to our first destination, Portugal!
Back to Japan – alongside the ramen shop was the cutest coffee café – of course we made a stop there for an after-dinner-espresso. Instead of getting our usual caffeine-to-go, we sat and chatted for hours about this new idea of leaving our lives behind to explore the world. That night, I woke at exactly 3am and mumbled “Grindstone Runaways” in my sleep. Maybe it was the coffee? Maybe is was the ramen? Well, whatever it was, it came to me on a subconscious level, and who could ignore that! Right?
Coffee speaks to me, draws me in with its beautiful aroma and somehow makes my day and my work that much better. So, here I am more than a year later, writing my first post about leaving all we know while high on caffeine!
Here’s to our final week of planning, quitting, selling, packing, and leaving – all to be fueled on caffeine. We hope you will join and support us on our mission to find the best cafes to work from around the world!
Chat soon!
Lyndz
xxx
